My Cousin Dan Sold War Stamps

I recently found this clipping from the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin in a box of stuff I was sorting through.

The clipping is dated January 1942. I know this from the reverse side, which features a patriotic advertisement.

Here is a better picture of young Dan.

Whenever I look back on this time in history I am reminded of the hardships that families endured with men away and money and commodities in short supply. The government needed money to fight the war and the budget deficit was soaring. With rationing and price controls in place personal savings rates were high. The government tapped these personal resources to finance the deficit and the war. People of every economic status gave generously to finance the war effort.

In April of 1941 Series E savings bonds were initiated. The bonds were renamed Defense Savings Bonds. People could purchase Defense Saving Stamps and paste them into albums to be exchanged for bonds. $18.75 would buy a bond that would yield $25 at maturity. Stamps were sold in denominations ranging from ten cents to five dollars.

The newspaper carrier boys’ defense stamp promotion was started by the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin in the September of 1941 and eventually included 900 newspapers and 150,000 carriers across the nation.

My cousin Dan sold 57,000 stamps, making him the ” Nation’s No.1 defense savings stamp salesman.” I love his statement that “equal credit should go to the thousands of newspaper carriers like himself all over the country who’ve sold 40,000,000 stamps since The Bulletin inaugurated the plan in September.”

It sounds like cousin Dan should have run for public office. He didn’t. He moved to California and spent his working life in the growing entertainment industry. He lives in the Los Angeles area now with his wife of 56 years with children and grandchildren nearby.